Bad Actor: A Hollywood Ponzi Scheme

I have never seen a "director" craft a documentary such that they place themself as the central figure. This young person seems to be cosplaying as a director rather than doing her job. The protagonist isn't that interesting and the inexperienced leader of the film is equally uninteresting. This is like a college project that somehow got funded by a rich uncle and sold to Hulu... Yikes all around. Of all the interesting criminal stories in the world, this might be at the bottom of the list. I actually can't think of much more to write and can't pick out any positives... there is a minimum character requirement.

This documentary tells you everything you already know about it before you watch it. There is no new information in it. The glossy production can't make up for the lack of depth. It begins with an interviewer showing amazement at anything she's told and devolves into long explanations of what a Ponzi is. There is a distinct lack of depth, so it's boring as hell. Given the subjectmatter, this really should have been an interesting documentary, but if you look beyond the gloss, you get something that looks as though it was created by a university student. It only really gets into interesting territory halfway through.

What a giant colossal waste of my time and investor's money. Why was there so much time spent on a long boring explanation of a Ponzi scheme? Why were we watching people audition for roles in the "recreation?" Why do I care about these random people's thoughts on the case? Where was the statement from the wife? Of all the many, many people defrauded, they couldn't get more interviews from them? Was this supposed to be a documentary about Zach Horwitz or a documentary about making a documentary? It was terrible and even when the guy passes by on his way into the courtroom she doesn't even try to get a comment or reaction in any kind of way. I cannot believe Hulu actually bought this piece of flaming hot garbage. Definitely looks like something from my one class of film production in undergrad 20 years ago. Go read the article in the New Yorker or listen to the podcast Scamfluencers: ep 3 or heck just go to Reddit...all way better options than wasting your time on this!

Zach Avery was born Zachary Horwitz. In 2022, he was sentenced to 20 years in prison for masterminding a Ponzi scheme where he sold TV and film rights and defrauded hundreds of millions of dollars. I've never heard of this guy. I guess that Hollywood doesn't want to acknowledge this scandal. Quite frankly, Bernie Madoff stole billions. He's the NFL hall of famer when compared to this guy who only played intramural football in college. All these people are pretty much the same. They are liars. This documentary would be more interesting if they could get Hollywood stars to talk about their experiences with the guy. Otherwise, I'm not that surprised about all his lies. It's what they do.

It's madness that she (the filmmaker) CHOSE to tell a story via documentary, when she had no more than fifteen minutes of testimony and zero evidence - this is horrible! Apparently she wasted her budget on licensing clips from major motion pictures (a very cheap, lazy and tired tactic, I might add) to zhuzh up and punctuate the OPINIONS, yes the opinions of tangential people to the crime - it is absolutely rediculous that she entered into this project unprepared, and on the hopes of a wing and a prayer! Ironically this could certainly be one of the projects that Zach used to scam folks by utilizing to gain legitimacy - terrible TERRIBLE.